News and info regarding Arizona's politics. U.S. Senate, Congress, Governor, statewide offices, initiatives, and - where we can - county and local.
We attempt to present objective information (unless labeled as "commentary") and do original reporting.
Drop us an e-mail with tips, comments, questions, etc - at info-at-arizonaspolitics-dot-com. Twitter: @AZs_Politics, phone:602-799-7025.
Want to join our team? Inquire within. (Or, by email.)

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

READ: New Poll Shows Carmona +2 Over Flake; Romney 11 Pts Up In AZ

(UPDATE, 10/4/12, 11:40am: Added response from PPP's Tom Jensen regarding use of the 11% margin on the Presidential race, rather than the 9% margin.)

The trend may be in favor of Democratic candidate Richard Carmona for Arizona's open U.S. Senate seat. He leads Rep. Jeff Flake (R-CD6) by 45%-45%, well within the 4% margin of error. Public Policy Polling (PPP), a national company said to lean slightly Democratic, just concluded its most recent poll of Arizona voters.

Its previous polling on the race was only three weeks ago, and it had shown Flake up 44%-43%. That 3-point swing could constitute a "trend", or it could simply be because of the different pool sampled in each of the two polls.

Mitt Romney has opened a larger lead over President Barack Obama among the likely Arizona voters, opening up an 11-point margin, 52%-41%. (Inexplicably, PPP uses the 53%-44% numbers reflected when the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is not included in the question; he is on Arizona's ballot, and apparently draws more of his 4% support from Obama than Romney.)

(UPDATE: Tom Jensen of PPP tells Arizona's Politics that they used the question that did not include the Libertarian candidates because "historical precedent" indicates that Johnson will get "less than 1%"; therefore, they believe that the Obama-Romney question is "a better measure of the final outcome.")